


Pas de deux II.

by queenmab_scherzo



Series: Symphony of a Thousand [7]
Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Aidan's POV, Angry Sex, Angst, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, First Fight, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:45:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3553166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenmab_scherzo/pseuds/queenmab_scherzo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Pas de deux" from Aidan's point of view. </p><p>They fight, they fuck, they play music, they make up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Aidan has always disliked sleeping in beds.

Which is, admittedly, a weird thing. It's probably to do with their stark, broad surface, or the empty expanse of linens. The way the sheets are always cold when you first climb in.

As a teenager, most nights he dozed off on the futon in his brother's room among a pile of blankets and pillows while the television flashed in the dark room, volume just above a murmur. Aidan didn't have a TV of his own, and his brother didn't mind. Much.

Then he got to college, where the dormitory beds were little more than foam mats. On these, he arranged as many cushions as possible and curled up on them like a squashy throne. Usually the bottom bunk. (Of course, as he grew bolder, he preferred to weasel his way into others' beds. The thrill of the rendezvous took his mind off trying to sleep.)

And tonight, despite the fact that he's exhausted and cold and it's almost two in the morning, his bed has never looked less inviting. In between untying dress shoes and peeling off tux layers, he shoots dark looks at the mismatched pillows and wrinkled comforter. His bed is made, actually, which means he hasn't slept in it in— _oh, Christ_. Don't think about things like that now.

It's been weeks. Weeks of either crashing on the couch in the main room or, ever more frequently, staying over at Dean's.  _The guy I'm fucking_. Another thing he doesn't want to think about now.

He drapes his jacket onto a plastic coat hanger, but the shirt and pants he tosses over a bedpost. He'll regret that the next time he has to wear them and must inevitably iron a crease back into the pant legs.

And then—it's either the thought of ironing pants or getting into bed alone—what was once a gentle throb in his temple intensifies.  _This is the guy I'm fucking_. He's not sure what's worse, the wrenching pain behind his eyes or the clawing heat in his chest. It doesn't matter because the best way to solve both issues?—digging in his underwear drawer for a bottle of vicodin. (They share the one bathroom, so all his hard drugs get tossed in with boxer briefs and unmatched socks and unused condoms.)

There's only two left. Bottles, that is. Another problem he's happy to ignore.

Aidan swallows the pills dry even though his throat protests. Everything inside him is scratched raw. He stands still for several moments—minutes—gazing, listening, hearing the unresolved phrases that never leave, the foggy illusion of silence, the empty bed, the empty house, the empty space between empty chords.

_I'm just 'the guy you're fucking'._

Couch it is, then.

And that's where he wakes up the next morning, more or less. At first he's not sure what's prodded him into consciousness—or if he is fully conscious at all. He dreamt about an opera; the director threw him on stage as a last-minute understudy for a part he's never sung. He can hear the woodwinds in the pit, and they sound sublime, and all Aidan can manage is a feeble tune that wanders around several key areas, none of which are the same as the orchestra.

Coherence begins to blossom in his mind, and Aidan hears a voice singing. It is his voice, the wretched operatic dream, and then it is a woman's voice—a tinny background noise just loud enough to pierce Aidan's half-conscious doze. And then he's awake. He's pulling his brain out of the mud, but he's awake. Really awake and really aware of his roommate's off-key singing as it drifts from the kitchen.

He tries to put together a sentence, and ends up with a groan followed by  _dammit-Liv-pleaseno_.

Something metallic clatters in the sink, jarring him out of the lingering sleepy fluff.

"Aidan! Oh my god! You almost gave me a heart attack, you turd! When on earth did you get home, like, 4 o'clock in the morning?! You said last night was the big half-season finale, I didn't know you were home!"

"'M right here."

She's light on her feet, but their old hardwood floors squeal under every step.

"You brat!" she says, smacking him in the thigh. Then, without a shred of courtesy, she tugs at his threadbare blanket. Daylight overwhelms his senses. If he hadn't had a headache before—well. Aidan curses and yanks the blanket back over his eyes.

Liv drives on. "What happened to drinks? Celebrations? Crazy nights on the town? I thought I had the place to myself all weekend.  _God_ , Aidan, I almost invited my friends over after rehearsal, you're lucky there's not four half-naked girls waking you up with morning stretches in here. I thought you were going out?"

"I didn't," Aidan mumbles into the wrinkled folds of his comforter. "… I did, but I came back."

The cushion dips as Liv sits down, budging his feet over for more space.

"I thought you were gonna celebrate the last concert?"

"Mm." Aidan wants to say so many things in response, but all he can manage is that pathetic whine that comes out when you yawn and try to complain at the same time.

Honestly, he's still fighting the warm, foggy cocoon of drugged sleep, only dimly aware of Liv's hand rubbing gentle circles into his calf. The fact that she lets him remain wrapped up in blankets and misery is a testament to her unending compassion. Or maybe it's just proof how tragic he looks.

"You okay, dollface?" she asks, dropping her voice to a more soothing decibel.

"Yeah."

"So how did it go last night?"

Last night. Shostakovich. The ninth symphony. Ideological weakness. Dean's face, red from the cold and the anger, swims into focus and Aidan begs it to stop, but the memories reach the brim and bubble over. Dean's brother's in town. Not yet but he will be. Would it have killed Aidan to smile and play along?  _I'm just the guy you're fucking._

"Yeah."

"… Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

Aidan steels himself and draws the covers back. This time he's prepared for the onslaught of daylight, and he tries to smile while he squints and rubs his eyes. Ordinarily, he loves their living room and its floor-to-ceiling windows and the fact they can't afford proper curtains. Today, the light is too much. When he opens his eyes, everything is washed out in bright pain, but when he closes them, he keeps seeing Dean's stunned expression. Curses. Stupid things Aidan said. Streaks of sunlight burned inside his eyelids.

"Probably drank too much after the concert," he says, hoping it comes across as offhanded.

Liv tilts her head with a pitying smile. She's got one leg pulled up on the couch, chin resting on her knee. "Sorry, baby," she says, quite sincerely. "Must've been quite a night. You practically slept all day."

Aidan grunts and scrubs his face. "What time is it?"

"Just about noon."

Jesus Christ, how did he manage that, anyway? Even his worst hangovers don't knock him out so profoundly; he's usually on his feet and functional by ten at the latest. He's got to warm up before lunch, after all, or the whole day just feels wrong.

And now it's noon and he's a grimy lump stuck to the sofa and his horn's still stowed in its case and he's hungry and sick and probably single.

Actually, none of that's unusual, except the part where it's  _fucking noon_. At this point he might as well stay in bed and wait for the next morning. Wallow for a solid twenty-four hours, then pull himself together.

He seriously considers it, too, but he can see his horn case out of the corner of his eye. Sitting there all neatly zipped and guilt-tripping him.

"Listen, sweetheart," Liv says, patting his knee, "how about I make you brunch? I found this fantastic recipe that's basically stir-fry for breakfast and all we have is vegetables in the fridge, anyway, and—well, maybe I shouldn't tell you what's in it. How's your stomach?"

Aidan chuckles despite himself. Liv Tyler has no off-switch, but her need to take care of others borders on desperation. Plus she's a wicked good cook. "You sure you don't mind?" he says, because he'd hate to take advantage, but there's really no stopping her.

Liv rolls her eyes. "I'll have a plate right up for you."

With immeasurable grace and energy, she unfolds herself from the couch and flits into the kitchen to work.

She must be off for the afternoon, too. It's only weekdays that she teaches—a local dance studio—and she has her own rehearsals on nights and weekends. She's actually dancing the same  _Nutcracker_  that Aidan's playing next week, and he's not ashamed to admit that she got him the gig.

Aidan gives himself a few more minutes to catch his breath. Which is weird. Waking up breathless. He pulls the blanket up to his chin and listens to the sounds of plastic bags and cutting boards and frying pans in the kitchen.

Bits and pieces of the night before come to him, like flipping a deck of cards over one-by-one. No matter which way you look at it, he's been dealt a shit hand. It's not fair. He thought they were on track, they were doing their thing, they—he  _likes_  Dean, really likes him a lot, but he hadn't considered a meet-the-parents scenario. That's asking a great deal, isn't it? Practically making Aidan part of the family already? How long have they  _known_  each other, anyway? A few weeks?

And what comes next? They move in together, lose touch with their friends, fight about dirty silverware, start falling asleep at different times. God forbid the day Aidan has to introduce Dean to  _his_  family.

Aidan lies on the sofa staring at the muted television screen just long enough to feel better, really. To feel like last night wasn't totally unjustified on his part. At the end of the day, those were some high expectations on Dean's part, and Aidan's not good with expectations.

He does a full-body stretch, feet jamming into the arm of the couch, then heaves himself up.

_This is the guy I'm fucking._

Hilarious. Aidan's eyes fix on one of those magnificent windows and for a split second, he considers how much it would hurt to fall the three stories and land on the pavement. His lungs burst with the reality of everything—he almost laughs, and almost sobs, and all that comes out is a desperate hiss.

"You okay?" Liv asks absently.

"Yeah," Aidan chokes. "I'm fantastic."

Their galley-style kitchen smells divine, vegetables and spices popping in a pan and making Aidan's stomach growl. He leans against the doorway and watches Liv work. Her smooth, practiced movements have a calming effect. He can almost forget the idiotic nonsense he let slip last night.

Liv glances up at him. "Oh, thank god."

"What's that?"

"I didn't think you were wearing pants."

Aidan rolls his eyes. "I always wear pants when I sleep out here."

She shoots him an incredulous look. He  _does_  make a point of wearing pants when he sleeps in the living room—whenever he's sober enough to tell one leg from the other.

Granted, these pants are ripping around the heels, and there's a hole peeking through the inseam and—he sticks his hands in his pockets—yes, they both have holes, as well. But he finds his phone in one of them. He pulls it up now and flicks past the lock screen. No notifications.

Which begs the question— _what now?_

The protocol here is way beyond Aidan's experience. He and Dean fought. That much is clear. But what happens now? Should he apologize? Should they meet in person? Dean's awake by now, has been for hours, Aidan is certain of that. What does it mean, then, if Dean hasn't sent him any kind of message? No "sorry," no "what are you up to," not even "hey you great fucking twat, couldn't find the decency to send a text?"

Lacking anything else to do, Aidan checks his email and finds junk newsletters from American Eagle and Netflix; checks his Facebook, where he's got a new friend request from a Royal Academy horn student he's never met; opens his Twitter app and then immediately closes it when Adam Brown's name pops up at the top of his newsfeed; re-opens his email, automatically, even though he knows there's nothing new there. Stares uncertainly at his phone screen for a long time. Long enough for Liv to finish cooking and nudge a plate of food into his line of vision.

Maybe Dean will apologize, he thinks, and decides to wait it out a bit longer. He tells himself it's the smart thing to do. Eat first, then get in touch with Dean once he clears his head.

Which is why, when Aidan and Liv are settled on the living room floor with plates of steaming eggs and bell peppers, and Liv is half-way through an animated story about how she and a girlfriend filled their co-star's running shoes with shaving cream as a prank, Aidan's phone buzzes in his pocket and he nearly flings his food into the ceiling fan.

Liv stares at him for a moment. "A little jumpy?" she asks, fork hovering between her mouth and her plate.

Aidan doesn't answer her. In fact he doesn't really even hear her speak, because the name  _Dean O'Gorman_  is displayed there, acting all innocent on his phone screen. He squeezes his eyes shut and runs a hand through his hair, curling his fingers and holding on tight until it just borders on too painful. Then he opens his eyes and swipes the message open.

_Hey, looking forward to seeing you on Thurs. Do you know what you're wearing?_

At first Aidan is baffled, because it's almost like the text is from someone else, it makes so little sense. He double checks, and yes, it definitely, definitely says "Dean" at the top of their conversation.

Then Aidan's chest bursts into flame.

This is some kind of farce. He could be polite—he could be civil—he could just ask for clarification—he could laugh it off—but  _Christ_ , he spent the night tossing and turning and half-sick with despair, running through every despicable thing that slipped past his lips and wanting to beat himself into a coma, and to think Dean can just toss it all aside makes Aidan's insides  _boil_. How dare he. How dare he make Aidan care this much.

The fury in Aidan's blood takes control of his fingertips.

_Is that a joke_

It feels like a joke. It feels like painful laughter bubbling up in his chest. It feels like everything vile in the universe punishing Aidan for being an insensitive bag of shit incapable of a healthy, functioning relationship.

"Aidan?" Liv asks, her voice small and hesitant.

He doesn't look up from his phone, willing Dean to answer, to say something better, to say  _yeah, it's a joke_ , to say he was just trying to lighten the mood, to say they should get together and talk about things. But there's no response. What's taking so long?

Anger beats against Aidan's chest.

_No idk what I'm fucking wearing half my dress clothes are still on ur bedroom floor_

That inexplicable, deranged laughter threatens to burst through his chest again. He's not sure if he wants his phone to buzz again, but it does. And Aidan reads it.

_You want to come over and pick up your things?_

Aidan reads it again. And again. And stares at the message until the lines blur together. Until they don't look like words anymore.

"Aidan, is everything okay?"

It's like pulling his head above water when he drags his eyes away from Dean's text. Liv has set her food aside and leaned closer, as if prepared to get up and perform CPR if necessary. Does Aidan really look that fucked up?

"Yeah, it's…" he trails off. He doesn't know what to say. Aidan isn't clear on the whole story himself, so what would he tell Liv? Dean dumped him? That might not be true, after all; they might just need to cool off. Or they might not have been dating, to begin with.

That thought almost makes Aidan laugh again, in an unhinged, just-one-more-thing-I've-fucked-up way.

"Who are you texting?" Liv asks. She still sits rigidly, propped up on her haunches, ready to leap to his aid, if needed.

"It's Dean," Aidan says, voice clipped. "We had a fight."

Liv's eyes widen. "Oh, my God, I'm sorry, baby." She scoots closer, and her hands twitch where they rest on her knees. "Was it bad? Oh—is that why you came home last night? You should have said something!"

Aidan shrugs.

"So is this the first time you've talked, then?" she asks, nodding at his mobile.

Aidan waves at the phone screen. "He just asked me to come over." He leaves out the part about clearing his belongings from Dean's flat.

"Well, that's good, then! You can talk about it," Liv says, maybe overly enthusiastic. "Does he mean today? You should, you should go over there. I'm sure you can work things out."

Aidan scoffs. "Yeah. Sure."

"Just go talk to him."

"I mean … I haven't played horn yet today, and I haven't showered, and I need to do laundry, and he might have rehearsal …"  _And frankly, I don't know if I can look him in the eye without squeezing back tears. Or calling him a cunt. Could go either way, right now._

Aidan notices Liv looking at him with a knitted brow, and realizes he's breathing heavily.

"Okay," she says softly, biting down on her lip. "But you can fix things, you know. People fight all the time. You just have to talk to each other."

So far, Aidan has failed colossally at _talking_. He thinks about the stupid drivel he said to Dean last night, and he thinks about what Dean said back.  _You don't need me to get what you want._

Aidan takes a deep breath. If Dean really believes that … then  _Aidan_  is the one who screwed this up. That's what hurts the most.


	2. Chapter 2

On Tuesday, Liv beats Aidan to the shower. He decided to practice some Strauss before cleaning up, getting dressed, or indeed, even eating, and he pays for it.

Just before noon, as he lounges in the living room and works through a piece of toast, he hears the telltale rumble of their rusty pipes behind the open-faced brick wall that means Liv has started the shower running. She'll be in there for half an hour, at least. He sighs and settles on the couch to wait.

The bad plumbing is probably the source of the water stains that trickle across their living-room ceiling. He studies them sleepily. Is that the kind of thing they're supposed to complain about? It's not like the ceiling actually leaks.

The Russian Dance from the Nutcracker is stuck in his head.

After checking his phone for messages (and finding nothing new), Aidan drags himself up from the couch with a groan and cracks his back. He shuffles past the bathroom, where he can just make out his roommate's off-key singing, and to his own bedroom.

Aidan doesn't use his bedroom for any of its intended purposes. He sleeps there every few weeks, at best; he only watches television in the main room; and he had sex there once, but the guy called Aidan by the wrong name all night, and it was a disaster trying to gently kick him out the next morning. Breakfast after a one-night-stand isn't unheard of, but it's not a fair expectation, either.

So Aidan's bedroom fulfills two primary purposes: closet and practice room. The room doesn't actually have a closet of its own, so Aidan installed a thick dowel rod across one corner to hang up his dress clothes.

The only furniture, besides the bed, is an end-table (with puppy-sized chew-marks on the legs) repurposed as a nightstand and an IKEA dresser, on which his TV sits and collects dust. A worn-out burgundy rug stretches crooked across the floor. It's too thin to be comfortable and too ugly to go with any décor—which his room lacks, anyway. A string of photos from Italy hangs over his headboard, though, and a couple months ago he finally remembered to hang up a painting he got as a gift from his future sister-in-law. An abstract conductor with a long-limbed string quartet. Apparently it made her think of Aidan.

His horn rests on his bed, glinting in the slice of morning sun that's breached the curtains. Its empty case sits in open disarray on the floor next to his practice mute and a music stand, stacked with too many books and loose sheet music.

He scoops up a pair of jeans from the bedpost—which acts an extension of his wardrobe when he's too lazy to fold clothes and put them away—and pads back into the hallway. He hovers outside the bathroom door. The shower has stopped running, but he can still hear Liv humming to herself. He's about to knock when the door opens, making him curse and almost drop his jeans.

"You ready to go?" Liv asks.

Aidan blinks. The month's schedule rockets across his mind and, fleetingly, he wonders if she knows about tonight's meeting with Dean. That's  _tonight_. She asked if he was ready to go? What time is it?

Aidan opens his mouth, but he's at a loss for words.

"To the studio?" Liv prods, eyebrows raised.

"Your—the dance studio?" he stammers. What does ballet have to do with Dean's apartment?

"Yes," she says with obviously strained patience. "You said you'd help me paint."

"Sorry, it's—yeah—when did we plan this?"

"I told you about it over a week ago, remember? When all my other friends bailed on me? You said Tuesday was good because, and I quote, 'you never have anything going on on Tuesdays.'"

Damn. He might have said that.

"Ri-ight," he says slowly. "So … can I shower?"

Liv rolls her eyes and squeezes past him into the hallway. "Just put on some deodorant and tie your hair up, no one will notice."

He glances at the nice jeans currently bundled in his arms, sighs, and goes back to his room to scrounge up painting clothes.

And that's how he ends up forty blocks away, perched on top of a crooked six-foot stepladder, wearing old jeans and trainers with a paintbrush and a pretty sad ponytail and probably paint splatter in his beard. He can hear Liv's class—a small group of kids no older than ten—dancing at first to Katy Perry and then to Tchaikovsky. It's jarring, to say the least.

It turns out, all Liv needed was a touch-up on the trim in the lobby. Aidan is happy to help, he is, but he kind of regrets the tight-fitting jeans after the third middle-aged dance mom takes a long look and tries to strike up conversation with him.

"Unseasonable, the weather is these days, it's a downright miracle it hasn't so much as rained in the last week."

Aidan clears his throat and shifts a little where he's seated on the top of the ladder. "It is, yeah. A miracle."

"I've never seen you round during classes, are you a handyman, then?"

"I'm—actually, I'm friends with Liv. Just doing her a favor, you know."

He can see it in this woman's eyes, the fleeting second of confusion while she tries to place Liv's name with her daughter's dance teacher. Aidan kind of wants to forcefully remind her, but he holds his tongue.

"Well," she says as she plays with her hair without any subtlety, "it's a shame we don't see you here more often."

"Right."

He can't see a wedding ring, but her hands are in her coat pockets. And that's three in a row.

Honestly, the attention of middle-aged women frightens Aidan. They live in an unflappable, stain-free world with expectations of polished nails and brand-name hand-bags and impeccable small-talk and family values, and at least one big expectation he won't ever live up to.

Luckily, the door to the studio opens then and diverts this woman's attention, because she simply  _must_  catch up with Karen. (Of course her name is Karen. What other name could it be.)

Aidan gives his work another once-over. He's not an expert at hard labor, but over the course of four classes (minus the hour they took for supper), he's managed to go over the doorframes and windowsills in a nice glossy cream coat, so the dance studio might live up to those upper-middle-class expectations a little better.

He fits the lid back onto the can of paint and takes the steps down two at a time. The music stops playing, and the small crowd of parents begins to trickle into the studio. After wiping his hands on a wet rag, then drying them on his pants, Aidan pulls his phone out of his pocket. He has a text from Lenora, asking what he plans to wear on Thursday night. The irony makes his throat close over. He doesn't answer, but he does pull up his conversation with Dean.

They haven't spoken since Sunday. Just another clue that Dean has already happily moved on. Aidan becomes extra-aware of every inhale and exhale. The cold air filling up his sinuses. He casts a glance around the lobby, but it's almost empty except for two haggard fathers in their mid-thirties going on about the Premier League. Aidan turns his back on them. Which is insane, because they're at the other end of the room, and it's not like they'd care to read over his shoulder, anyway.

_Hey what time do you finish Handel tonight_

He hits send before he can think about it too much.

Then he pockets his phone, folds the ladder up, and returns it to a storage closet behind the front desk, a rickety metal affair that Aidan assembled himself a few years ago, which explains why one end is a little taller than the other.

By this time, girls in legwarmers and puffy winter coats begin to scurry through the lobby and out into the foggy evening, followed by their parents, all bearing that expression of patient amusement that Aidan can't at all relate to.

His pocket vibrates again, and it's kind of embarrassing how Dean's name flashing on the screen makes Aidan's stomach clench, even when he's expecting it.

_9:30. Are you still coming over?_

A large part of him desperately doesn't want to. It would be so easy for Aidan just to say fuck it, we'll do it another time, or better yet bring my clothes round at our next rehearsal and in the meantime I'll burrow in front of my TV with a bottle of Zinfandel and pretend this never happened, pretend you never happened, just forget it all.

An equally large part of him would much rather watch reruns and drink wine with his feet in Dean's lap, though. A confrontation is worth that risk.

 _Yeah if that's ok,_ he types.

It seems like a long time before Dean sends back,  _Yeah_.

The last class of the night is always slow. It's after dinner hours and all the parents are in chatty moods, and after they've cleared out Liv feels obligated to inspect Aidan's work and kiss him on the cheek for a job well done, so anyway, when the place is empty and locked up, it's late enough that it wouldn't be worth Aidan going home. He's closer to Dean's right now, anyway. The thought makes him faintly ill.

Adjusting her scarf, Liv turns to Aidan and asks, "Want to grab a drink?"

Oh, right. He hasn't told her yet. "I have plans, actually."

She looks bummed, at first, then narrows her eyes. "You're not just gonna ditch me and go out with someone else, are you? Because you're not the only person who wants to get laid once in awhile, you know. And we haven't been out drinking together in ages."

"Are  _you_  gonna ditch  _me_  and go out with someone else?"

She throws her head back and laughs. "Yeah, probably. Yeah. I'm about to call Carrie."

He chuckles awkwardly, then clears his throat. "I'm, um, actually I'm going to see Dean."

"Oh! Oh, that's fantastic! You guys just need to talk things out, get everything sorted, it'll be alright. People fight all the time."

"Yeah."

"What did you two fight about, again?"

"Oh. Nothing, really. His brother."

"…You fought about his brother?"

"He's coming to visit," Aidan says, scratching at the beard he's got coming in, "and I'm—I was less than enthusiastic about meeting him."

"So no big deal! Just tell him you can't wait to meet his brother and everything will be fine!"

Aidan exhales through his teeth. He doesn't know what to say to that, so he just nods and gives her a hug good-bye and splits off down a side street and tries not to think about how much more fun Liv is likely to have tonight.

Because the odds are against him, here. Two days ago, Dean shut the door in his face, and then he told Aidan to clear out his things, and honestly until now they hadn't even addressed the fact that he had  _things_  in Dean's apartment, so once they're gone, what then? They can pretend nothing ever happened. Clean break.

But Dean  _did_  invite him over. Maybe Aidan will get a chance to explain.

It's not that he doesn't want to get to know Dean better, or meet his family, or spend nights with him or kiss him in public. It's just that the foundation is so structurally crucial, and the deeper Aidan gets, the more likely he is to violently wreck everything from the ground up. Irreparably. Spectacularly. Inevitably.

He can actually feel his heart spinning in his chest when he gets to Dean's block, and he panics and finds it hard to breath so he texts Liv and asks her,  _freaking out a bit what do i tell him?_

He stands outside the building waiting for her to text back, and enough time passes that two people come and go and she still hasn't responded. In what he thinks is a great feat of maturity, Aidan  _doesn't_  chuck his phone into the nearest brick wall, and he's downright courteous when one of Dean's neighbors holds the front door open for him.

The corridor outside Dean's flat smells of coffee when Aidan gets upstairs, and it makes him happy, fleetingly, and then he wonders if that  _ought_  to make him happy, and the bitter taste catches in his throat. But if the coffee seemed like a good sign, it's quite a shock the way Dean opens the door and says "how did you get in?" as if he's actually mad. As if he doesn't want to see Aidan, after all.

Which is a shame, because seeing Dean is  _good_. Christ, does he ever not look perfect? Clean-cut and sober and beautiful. Aidan didn't want to look like he was trying too hard, but now he's showed up looking like a  _bum_ , like he doesn't care at all, and seeing Dean in a belt and fitted dress pants makes him care  _a lot_.

"One of your neighbors was leaving," Aidan says, answering the question that, honestly, he barely registered. "Should probably be more careful about that. Guess I don't look like a threat."

"Not to them, anyway."

Aidan doesn't know what to make of that. Just like he doesn't know what to make of Dean's nice clothes, or his flat, which is more or less exactly the way Aidan last saw it.

If Dean can keep himself and his place tidy, their fight must not have thrown him too off balance.

"You couldn't have texted?" Dean asks bluntly.

Aidan turns to look at Dean and realizes, yeah, he forgot to text, and he could kick himself for it, so he changes the subject. "Where's my stuff?"

"Your ... it's in the bedroom. I guess. Wherever you left it."

"You didn't—" Aidan has to stop himself when he laughs. If Dean really wanted Aidan gone, wouldn't he have packed up Aidan's things and been ready to kick him out? Aidan's blood slogs in all the mixed signals. Not to mention the way Dean's eyelashes catch the lamplight.

"What?" Dean prompts.

It's the same existentialist experience as when you float through a difficult passage of a symphony and realize it's over and you did it, as if someone else acted in your place.

That's what it's like when Aidan kisses Dean.

It's like the cadence at the end of the [slow-movement horn solo in Brahms' second](https://youtu.be/qQdZsiMbl5o?t=1m38s), the one you have to memorize in contours and rolling hills and parapets and stained glass because it's impossible to hit all the notes if you focus too hard.

When Aidan comes back to himself, it's one note at a time: Dean's lips, which are hard, but don't fight back. The point where their noses flatten together. The fingers, Dean's fingers, where they rest lightly just above his hip. The sharp inhale before Dean pulls away.

"What are you doing?"

Still kissing him, still kissing Dean, because it's easier this way.

No, not easier. Aidan is confused and he's working hard to communicate all the intolerable feelings chewing through his ribs, and kissing Dean now and untucking his shirt to reach his bare skin isn't  _easier_  at all, it's harrowing, it's a fearsome thing, opening up his chest and exposing all the dissonant counterpoint.

When Dean tells him to stop, tells him  _don't do this_ , Aidan doesn't know how to explain it—that he can't stop, because Dean just needs to listen, even though Aidan doesn't know what to say.

Dean confuses him, but most importantly, he kisses Aidan back.

And that's why they can't stop.

"Coward," he whispers.

It comes naturally, of course. Tearing off clothes—struggling out of these pants  _which are too tight and really an official nuisance_ , they're going straight in the bin next chance Aidan gets—kicking off shoes and falling into bed and pulling out condoms from the top drawer like they planned this.

"Had that handy, didn't you?" Aidan says, not without a little bite.

"Shut up."

"You were all ready for me?" he prods. Egging him on.

"Shut up."

"What else do—oh  _god_." It burns when Dean finally enters him, but what's Aidan going to do, ask him to slow down? Take it easy? There's nothing slow or easy about them.

Aidan brain processes everything sluggishly. His thoughts come to him one at a time, and late, always too late.  _Shut up, you're screaming. Relax, it won't hurt as much. Quit scratching his back. Seriously, stop screaming._

Sex is not complicated. You get naked and get off. Simple. It can be short or long, rough or gentle, casual or intense. Good or bad.

But no; Dean manages to confuse that, too. Aidan's arms shake, wrapped tight around Dean, and he's not sure if he wants to pull him closer or push him away. It legitimately hurts the way Dean pounds into him, but the pain draws them together, keeps Aidan in one piece. A soundwave in motion, unobstructed.

Until he can feel Dean's teeth on his neck. Aidan squirms and scrabbles at Dean's hair and there's nowhere to go but instinctively he's thinking  _no—everyone will see—_

Dean's hips stutter. A gentle noise escapes his lips and brushes behind Aidan's ear, sending a shiver down his spine. Everything softens, the sharp dots of pain blurring into one unfocused film, just bright fuzziness in an overexposed action shot, and all that's left is the throbbing, undeniable ache of his own arousal.

He's  _so_  close, relief roars under the surface, and it wouldn't take much, all Dean needs to do is angle his hips, but then—then they make eye contact. Dean's eyes lock onto Aidan's and he can actually hear it, the way one note goes out of tune and everything unravels.

He can see it in Dean's eyes, the shift to a new tonic. Brittle ice breaking underfoot.

"Don't you dare," he croaks. He's not just thinking of his dick (which, admittedly, is a pretty deafening voice in his head right now), it's  _everything_ , it's the way Dean's eyes have already ground to a halt and spun in the opposite direction.

"Shit."

"Dean—please—"

For better or worse, he doesn't give Aidan an opportunity to beg. He pulls out. And not gently, either, which pisses Aidan off.

"You  _bastard_ ," he spits, fingers digging into the sheets.

"Dammit, Aidan."

Like  _Aidan_  is the bad guy, here? " _What?"_

"Why did you come here?"

"Not so you could leave me hanging, that's for sure."

"So you  _were_  trying to get laid?"

No, Dean, but this raging boner is making things a  _little_  hard to process. Not to mention— "You didn't seem to want to stop me!"

"You're pathetic."

Dean disappears into the bathroom. This is the worst kind of harmony, the gentle ripping of seams between consonant chords. Every time one voice should resolve, the other veers off course.

Aidan heaves himself up from the bed. It feels like he's working against gravity. The stale heat drags everything down to earth.

As he shoves one leg into his jeans, Aidan also sees a small pile of his clothes on Dean's dresser. Two button-downs and a pair of slacks. It's actually not that much. He exhales. "I  _came_  here to get my  _stuff_ , you prick."

"Bullshit. You wanted to get off."

"I wanted to see you!" Aidan fervently hopes that Dean can't hear when his voice breaks.

"Yeah, I'll bet. You got what you wanted, now get your stuff and get out."

Dean won't look at him. Not while he wipes himself off in the bathroom, not while he pulls on a pair of sweatpants, not while he shoves Aidan's clothes and shoes into his arms. His eyes dance over Aidan's torso and his socked feet and the doorway, but not his eyes.

"All you can think about is sex."

"And all you can think about is  _yourself!_ "

He doesn't regret saying it. Not right away. Not when Dean slams the door in his face, nor when he has to put his shoes on awkwardly in the hallway. Not when he yanks his hood up for the bus ride home so none of the other passengers can see his hair, which is a disaster, or his face, which can't be much better. Not when he gets back to his place and realizes Liv still isn't home, because all the doors are locked. Not when he dumps his clothes inside the front door and switches on the table lamp. Not when he takes off what is now his least-favorite pair of pants and changes into flannels that are two sizes too big.

Why should he regret it? It's true.

The colossal unfairness of it all wraps around his throat. The way Dean accused Aidan of using him for sex. Aidan's not even the one who got off.

So no, he doesn't regret calling Dean out for being a selfish bastard. Not until his phone vibrates in his pocket and he thinks, briefly, that it might be Dean himself, and then experiences faint disappointment when he reads  _Liv Tyler_  on the screen. Swipes open her message.

_Sorry you're nervous! You guys just need to talk things out. Just be honest with him. You'll be fine._

Aidan gawks at the message. At the time between text messages, which only an hour, and how much of that was travel time?

The air tumbles out of his lungs in a rocky exhale. He hurls his phone into the opposite end of the couch, where it bounces off the armrest and comes to rest on the cushion harmlessly.

And he regrets everything. He can't fool himself forever.

Aidan sinks into the corner of the sofa and pulls his knees up to his chest. His breathing is labored. He scans the living room, the couch and the blanket and the pillows and the coffee table they use as a television stand and the squashy armchair with its popped seams and a lamp and what else? Why is it all so empty? Why is it all so quiet?

The shadows are all hard lines on 90-degree angles, except on the big brick wall with its pits and scars. Aidan wants to burn it down around him. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to hold the tears in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The harrowing wasteland of late-Romantic sheet music.

"Is that a hickey?"

Aidan doesn't answer. It's too early for this. When Liv asks again, he gives her a grunt and a half-wave, but he doesn't stop on his way to the bathroom.

"Sweetheart, why are you limping?"

He grimaces. For a moment, Aidan imagines living in a magnificent world where no one asks him any questions. Especially the morning after. Then he mumbles, offhandedly, "I'm not."

"Aidan—"

"I'm just … my foot fell asleep," he says. It's a weak lie.

He shuts himself in the bathroom before she can continue the interrogation.

After he starts the shower running, Aidan gazes around the room. At the old maroon-patterned tiles and the mismatched towels. He goes to the door, rests his forehead there and lets the water warm up, listens until he can hear Liv head out the apartment and lock it behind her.

He doesn't really want to take a shower, but it's been a couple days, so he shampoos his hair, though its tangles are in need of a great deal more attention than he's willing to offer. He's got the flat to himself and tonight's rehearsal is in the pit, so who's he trying to impress?

He pops another pill before pulling on sweatpants and unpacking his horn to practice. As if he'll accomplish anything productive.

_Why are you limping?_

It's not fair, either, because Aidan wants to talk to Liv about it, about  _everything_ , but he worries that it would be insensitive. To ask Liv Tyler, of all people, for advice on failed relationships. He didn't actually know her until after the divorce, but it must be a sensitive subject.

They met when Aidan was at the Royal Academy, working on his post-grad and subbing with pit orchestras in the evenings. Liv's marriage had recently come to an untimely and unfriendly end. She coped by picking up her things, leaving North Carolina behind, and restarting her life across the ocean with nothing more than a suitcase and a one-year contract with a decent London ballet company. (That was five years ago. Things seem to have worked out.)

On opening night for  _Romeo and Juliet_ , Aidan stained his tux shirt with onion soup and accidentally stepped into a women's restroom backstage to try and clean up. Liv wasn't actually the one who found him there—she was the one who rescued a scandalized Juliet, then stayed behind to help Aidan out of his shirt and run it under the tap.

"So was this an accident," she had asked while scrubbing at the spot, "or is this just your subtle way of creeping on the ladies' room?"

"Definitely an accident."

She had given him a stern look, and he had been overwhelmingly endeared by her instinct to protect Juliet. And probably all the ballerinas.

"Trust me," he had explained with his hands raised, "This was a bit of an emergency. … I'd have rather walked in on Romeo than Juliet, to be honest."

That had knocked a laugh out of her, and they were probably official friends before he even put his shirt back on. The next evening he went out with the dancers, and on closing night, Liv introduced him to that Romeo (for which he was exceedingly grateful).

Aidan kind of idolizes Liv. He'd love to pull an international lifestyle transformation the way she has, but so far, none of his personal crises have been sensational enough to justify reinventing himself. But she's amazing, regardless.

Maybe he doesn't have to ask her about shattered relationships or woeful break-up sex. Maybe he can just ask her for a little of that wingman magic, again. Subtle, right? Liv will figure things out, but Aidan won't have to admit all the details of being a shitty boyfriend.

So two hours later, when she texts him to ask how things are, Aidan just responds with  _the usual_  and  _fine_  and  _we should hang out sometime_.

He spends the afternoon with the horn on his face. He plays until it hurts, and then keeps playing until he can't feel it anymore. At the ballet rehearsal, he spends half his time desecrating Tchaikovsky and the other half staring at Dean's text messages from the past week.

Russell calls him out on both counts—sucking at horn and staring at his mobile—but Aidan shrugs it off. "Practiced a lot today," he says, and, "just talking to Liv." The fourth time it happens, Aidan whips around and asks Russell if he'd like to trade parts, and he finally backs off.

After rehearsal, in a half-hearted attempt to apologize, Russell asks if he wants to go out for drinks, and Aidan declines. Maybe he was hoping to see his roommate; maybe he was hoping not to see another living thing at all. But he ends up alone again, curled in front of late-night sporting news with a bottle of wine and his phone opened to Dean's messages. Again. Still.

He wants to say something, but what? He could apologize for kissing Dean, which was a little presumptuous, but he's not exactly  _sorry_  about it. Almost seriously, he considers sending a few choice curse-words, but he's twenty-six years old and that seems very private-school. In the end he flips his phone over so he can't see the screen, pours himself another glass, and gazes at the hazy grey street lights through his dirty windows. It's a transient thing, the horizontal filter of late evening. The waiting room after playing an audition, but before hearing the results.

But doesn't he know the results? Dean clarified things. How he felt used. And Aidan can't offer him anything but an impulsive skeptic with commitment issues. A wreck self-medicating with wine and codeine, knelt before the world asking to turn down the volume.

* * *

 

Aidan wasn't lying when he claimed he hadn't had a cigarette in almost ten years. It doesn't  _feel_  that long, though. Christ, at tonight's fundraiser it had felt like less than ten minutes. And he was ready for a second as soon as Dean brought up that first time they slept together.

Which Aidan remembers, for what it's worth. The memory isn't vivid, but it's there, infused with ticklish ribs and shoulder kisses and blue bath towels and strawberry shampoo and Mendelssohn.

It hurts, then; the conscious awareness that at the time, and ever since, Dean has been imagining Aidan with other men. He doesn't say it outright, but it hurts.

_Someone else might see them. Whoever else gets to take off your shirt._

That's heavy stuff. The [Mahler-6-finale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMMSL24q_LE) heavy. Blows of fate struck against hollow chambers of the heart.

The problem is, Aidan doesn't have words to weigh against that; to adequately explain that he hasn't been with—hasn't even  _thought_  of being with—another person since that night with the red wine and the Scottish Symphony. And then a week later, Strauss week, Dean fucked him senseless. Not in the giddy Don Juan way, irony of ironies, but in a singular, focused, eye-contact, inescapable way that makes your lungs stop working. The way you can't go back from.

It all feels desperate and rash, now. Dean shoves the jacket into his arms and he says "I deserve to be more than some guy you're fucking," the words that have been haunting Aidan for a week.

Apparently they are heavy enough.

Several feet—paces—meters— _miles_  lay between them, but Aidan speaks, anyway, because a little balance is better than none. "I don't want anyone else to see it. Just so you know."

Then he proceeds to call Liv Tyler and beg her for a night out because Jesus  _Christ_ , Aidan needs to forget Mendelssohn and Strauss and everything in between.

They do go out. It takes convincing, but they go out. Disappointingly, she drags along another dancer and a choreographer, but they go out.

And the steady flow of Guinness, house red, and vodka-cranberry help Aidan to forget. He kind of wants another cigarette, too. Because he is trash.

He must say so out loud, because Liv assures him otherwise ( _No, you don't want a cigarette. No, you are not trash_ ), and disappears to the bar with her friends to find him another glass of wine to replace the half-empty one before him. Which is stupid, because it tastes terrible. He pulls out his phone and actually gets half-way through the text before he realizes Dean won't care. He wants to tell him, though. He wants to tell Dean that the wine here is bad because Dean would make fun of him for ordering fucking red wine at a bar and then laugh about it and maybe buy him something as a replacement, some dark, full-bodied ale.

And somewhere between half-empty and totally-empty, while Liv and the others are still at the bar, Aidan ends up in a heated argument with some heavy bloke who has a broad nose and a pre-pubescent beard and no sense of personal space. Aidan reminds the man of all these exceptional qualities, which he doesn't seem to appreciate. He responds with a string of Irish slurs that stopped bothering Aidan in the 1990s.

Aidan laughs. It makes the guy's face turn red, which makes Aidan laugh harder, and makes him say—something, something, it's all unintelligible and honestly unimportant, but this fucker thinks otherwise because he shoves Aidan—who shoves him back, because grow up, mate—and then there's a split-second of black—stars spinning, probably a piccolo solo—Aidan staggers—it's really just the pool table holding him up, now.

And Liv's voice. That's not what's holding him up literally, of course. But it commands his attention. An angry Liv Tyler shouldn't be ignored.

It's either Angry Liv or the blast of cold air that brings Aidan up-to-speed.

"We're outside," he says stupidly.

" _Yes_ , we are outside. Because you can't handle being inside with civilized people."

"You're outside, too," he points out. "That means you're uncivilized, too."

"Dammit, Aidan!" Liv firmly guides him onto a cold concrete stoop, then crosses her arms and scowls. "You know, I had  _hoped_  to impress Philip, tonight. He choreographs for the big opera houses. Travelling companies. Stravinsky and shit. And you're in there starting fights and making me babysit you like a drunk teenager?"

"I didn't  _start_  anything."

"You made enough of a scene, you asshole!"

He blinks. "… There are at least three of you yelling at me right now."

Aidan tries to focus, but his head is pounding and his left eye buzzes like a pincushion. A distinct discomfort has begun to spread across his cheekbone.

Liv heaves a sigh, then takes his head between her hands. An unmistakable empathy warms over her stern words when she asks, "what's gotten into you, Aidan?"

Aidan sort of laughs and sobs at the same time. "Dean dumped me."

Neither of them speaks for several minutes. Aidan closes his eyes, because the insides of his eyelids don't bear down on him with pity or sadness or a suspicious lack of surprise.

"I'm sorry," is the first thing she says. Then, "you really shouldn't start fights with guys who weigh twice as much as you."

Aidan means to laugh, because she's just trying to lighten the mood, but it comes out more like a groan. Between the shock and the cold air, he has sobered just enough to really feel the  _ache_  behind his eye socket.

"Look at me," says Liv, and Aidan obeys. She brushes his hair back to get a better view of his face. "You're lucky he didn't hit your mouth."

"Now it feels like a  _real_  break-up," he says, laughing, even though this is probably the least funny moment of his life. The inevitability is what gets him. "Got a black eye to top it off. Just like old times."

She clucks at him. "Don't compare this to Chris. That wasn't even a real relationship."

"'Course it was. And I fucked it up, like I always do."

"You didn't fuck anything up, sweetheart."

"I did." Why are they even fighting about this? "I'm pretty sure that's all anyone remembers of me from school."

"Are you kidding? Everyone remembers you being a badass horn player. What about our last year, your big symphony?"

She means Mahler 5, the spectacular finale right before graduation. For reasons he still can't fathom, the music director not only programmed Mahler's fifth, but also awarded Aidan, of all people, the principal solo part after a rigorous audition. So there he was, twenty-two years old, the tramp and the pariah of their graduating class, and somehow their last hurrah turned into an Aidan Turner feature. His classmates must have been sick at the thought.

"It wasn't  _my_  symphony. It was the whole orchestra."

"Yeah, right. Everyone in the audience wanted your autograph afterwards."

"Not likely," Aidan scoffs. "Since more than half of them took Chris's side in that whole disaster."

She doesn't answer. As usual, Aidan's catastrophic college romance is the only thing that gets Liv Tyler to stop talking. She likes to pretend he did nothing wrong, even though cheating on your partner  _is_  objectively wrong, and she of all people should know that.

"I was the scandal of the  _century_." He says, trying not to let his voice break.

"It wasn't that bad."

Maybe she ignores the tragic blunders of Aidan's past for her own sake. Something to do with forgiveness of sin and personal balance and the centeredness of your soul. It's all very holistic. The mark of a genuinely kind person.

Genuinely kind people have always impressed Aidan. He could never pull it off. He was never innocent or confident or gullible enough to be kind.

"You know I'm right," he whispers.

"No." She doesn't address it when he starts crying, just wipes away the tear that escapes and continues her inspection of his injured eye. "What I  _know_  is that you never meant to hurt anyone. Do you even remember what happened that night?"

"Yeah, I got royally fucking trashed."

"Exactly." She follows the same script every time, but it makes Aidan feel marginally better, anyway. "You were too drunk to think straight."

"Literally," he giggles.

Liv ignores his tipsy outburst. "You and Chris were never that serious. He just guilt-tripped you to make him feel better about himself."

Aidan takes a breath. Then another.

"Why do I keep messing up?"

Liv frowns at him. "Did you cheat on Dean?" she asks matter-of-factly.

"No!"

"Then this isn't the same," she says calmly. "You didn't mess anything up, okay?"

"Feels like shit."

"I know, baby." She sits down next to him and pulls him into a side-hug. He lets her. Wraps a loose arm around her waist and lays his head on her shoulder. "For what it's worth, I don't think you'll have a black eye."

"Really?"

"It doesn't look bad."

"Christ, he almost knocked me off my feet," he says, pressing tentative fingertips into his cheek. "Was I just that drunk?"

"Mm. I think you were just that drunk."

He tries to laugh. The result is more like a weary sigh.

Aidan always expected the moment of  _moving on_  to be something bigger and more dramatic than the damp pavement outside a cheap two-story pub with one broken pool table. He expected more breathless release and alignment of the heavens and chivalric inheritance of the earth. And fewer black eyes. But maybe now, for the bitter starving artists who subject themselves to the harrowing expanse of late-Romantic sheet music every day, catharsis is just the shoulder on which to rest your head while the world teeters into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spring break is great for updating fic.


	4. Chapter 4

_All life is an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness._  Right. The urgent and grotesque need among all late-Romantics to twist every happy phrase into something disproportionately unhappy. Aidan reads further:  _No haven exists … Drift upon that sea until it engulfs and submerges you in its depths._

Jesus, but Tchaikovsky was a real downer. Even without all the tiresome homoerotic speculation.

His monumental fourth symphony stands on its own, really, but compound upon that the existential bullshit, and the whole work is downright violent.

Aidan loves it.

The battleground of the first movement lights fire in his guts; under his fingernails; roars up the trench of his spine. It is the quintessential nightmare, and Tchaikovsky uses the French horn like a weapon in his score, an unrelenting beast with nine lives and no conscience and absolutely, absolutely no mercy for these  _visions of happiness_.

It's like playing a role in the theater, the Villain Archetype—and not any of that carefully-crafted, devious, Iago bullshit. No, it's full-on bad intentions set center-stage.

The first time Aidan performed it, he threw up afterwards, and the smile never left his lips. He can get into all the "fate motives," all the "hard realities"—the purposeless wilderness of the soul that Tchaik apparently had in mind—he can get into that for the window of time it takes to perform the symphony, and it will hurt afterwards, but even Aidan isn't pessimistic enough to buy into a lifetime of that kind of inexorable despair.

Today, though, if only for one afternoon, inexorable despair sounds like just what he needs. Especially when it's marked at triple- _forte_.

He starts at the beginning, then plays the spectacular  _soli_  section in the middle (a remarkably uplifting island that rises from the bleak landscape of the first movement), then goes back and plays the second horn's corresponding parts for good measure.

Wagner is on the next page, so he runs through one of the famous horn calls from  _Siegfried_ , but it's rather painfully high, so he only goes through it once before flipping through the book for more loud music. The louder the better.

Shostakovich. Perfect. The fifth symphony. The ferocious unison wail, and the low bass-clef tutti, which he plays at least 9 times in a row.

Then Aidan turns the page to a Richard Strauss biography and thinks, yes, Strauss is quite ideal for  _fury_  and  _brimstone_  and  _loud_. So he turns the page again and the name  _Don Juan_  strikes a blow to his chest. The air in his lungs simply evaporates as if squeezed out by a vice.

And that, of course, is when Liv knocks on his door.

Aidan can't answer.

She knocks again, and his doorknob rattles and Liv's head pokes inside.

"Hey, I'm sorry, Aidan," she says softly, her eyes just visible over the top of his music stand, "but … the neighbors are complaining."

Trying to process the mundanity of the situation, Aidan glances at his music, and back up at Liv. "The neighbors are complaining, or my roommate is complaining?"

"Come on," she says wearily. "You know I wouldn't do that."

"The neighbors never complain," says Aidan, his eyes fixed on the music.  _Don Juan_.

"Yeah, and you never play ten-thousand decibels for forty-five minutes straight."

"Maybe I should do it more often."

Liv ignores him. "I have to leave in like fifteen minutes. … Try not to get us evicted while I'm gone."

Aidan can feel his teeth grind together. He glowers at his roommate for a long time without speaking—long enough that she can do nothing but sigh, and apologize, and remind him to shut up, and leave, and close the door softly behind her.

Then he stares at the closed door for a bit longer. When he comes back to himself, he flips his music book shut and tosses it onto the floor. It lands on the corner of his rug, not far from the trash bin, and he considers for a second—but that's unfair to Strauss. It's not Strauss's fault Aidan can't look at the piece, let alone hear the music, without having to hold the cracks of his heart together.

Heaving himself up from his seat on the edge of the (still-made) bed, Aidan kicks his case open and gives his horn a long look.

Some people say horns are pretty. They  _sound_  pretty, sure; in fact, "pretty" doesn't even approach the sublime sound and sheer versatility of the instrument. It's like the human voice, but better, because you don't have to fucking sing, and more impressive, because it's really tragically difficult.

There are some people, though, who think the instrument  _looks_  pretty, or, weirdly, that people look pretty when playing it, which makes Aidan skeptical. Compared to the elegance of a violin or a flute or an oboe, horn players find themselves trapped behind an immobile hunk of metal, and always come across as lopsided and heavy-set.

Has it really been forty-five minutes?

Maybe. Aidan's lips are buzzing.

With a deep breath, he begins to disassemble his horn, then reconsiders. Instead, he digs out a bottle of valve-oil to give the instrument the maintenance it so desperately needs. Aidan has been neglecting the poor thing.

As soon as he finds the oil, his phone rings, and he straightens up so fast he almost knocks his music stand to the floor. He gently sets his horn on the end of the bed, and then searches frantically for his mobile. It's still ringing, which means he's getting a phone call. An actual phone call, not a text.

No one ever calls him.

Aidan finally unburies his phone from where it's slid under a corner of his pillow. When he sees the name on the screen, his mouth actually falls open.

He swipes to answer the call. "Hello?"

"Aidan? What's up, man?"

"Hey, Sean." He exhales, and can actually feel the muscles in his stomach relax. It's been way too long since he's heard his brother's voice.

"How are you?"

Aidan laughs weakly. "Alright. I'm alright. What about you? Why are you calling me on a perfectly good Wednesday afternoon? Don't you have anything better to do?"

"I left work early so I could go Christmas shopping."

"… Shit, I still need to do that."

As they laugh together, Aidan eases onto the bed and pulls his horn into his lap. He puts his brother on speaker so he can inspect the valves with both hands.

"So what about you?" Sean's voice crackles from its place on the windowsill. "What are you up to these days?"

Aidan shrugs before he remembers Sean can't see him. "Lot of the same, really," he says. "Concerts and rehearsals every day, more or less."

" _Every day_."

Aidan chuckles. "It's alright." He unscrews a valve cap and applies a few drops of oil.

"I mean, I've seen how hard you work, but hearing you talk about it, about how busy you are. It just blows my mind."

"How about you remind dad about all the work I put in?" he says sharply.

"… Yeah. I hear you." Sean almost manages a laugh, but it's uncomfortable filler to make up for uncomfortable silence.

Aidan probably shouldn't have brought it up. "Anyway." He moves on to the next valve. "I've been sort of busy."

"So … will you be able to come home for Christmas?"

Aidan pauses. Takes a moment to fiddle with his valve key. Then he sucks in a breath. "I don't think so. Not this year."

At first, Sean doesn't say anything, and Aidan can picture him scratching his ear and avoiding eye contact. "Not even for a little bit?"

"Yeah, I mean, I have a gig." It's not a lie. He's doing a  _Nutcracker_  the weekend before Christmas. If he wanted, he could probably get back to Dublin in time. "Like I said, pretty busy."

"Not even New Year's?"

"... I gotta save up some money. Sorry. I'll get back soon, I promise."

"You better," Sean says firmly. "I'm bringing Ashley home this year."

"You two could come visit me, you know," Aidan jibes, and a smile even tugs at his lips.

Sean laughs. "Right. We'll see. We'll see who gets time off first."

"Deal." Aidan picks up his horn and turns it end-over-end to empty out the excess oil, then moves on to the next valve.

"She wants to meet you."

"Who doesn't?" Aidan jokes.

Sean laughs, then he clears his throat. "So … Have  _you_  been seeing anyone?"

"Yeah," Aidan says automatically. "I mean—"

"Really?"

"Or—well—I think we're probably through," Aidan backtracks. "We um, had a thing for a couple weeks, but then … we had a fight. I think we're going our separate ways. So, you know, tell everyone I'm back on the market." He tries to crack a joke, and laughs at himself, but it's weak.

"So you must've  _just_  ended things."

Aidan can never get anything past his brother. He clears his throat. "I guess, just … pretty recent."

"… Do you want to talk about it?"

Aidan pauses, half-way through unscrewing a valve cap, and thinks for a moment. The  _no_  almost comes out habitually, but he can hear all the chords thinning out; all his opportunities, all the perfect authenticity, slipping through the cracks in his bones. Music he needs to memorize because he keeps forgetting to write it down. "Yeah," he croaks. Clears his throat again—when did his lungs start crumpling up?—and adds, "yeah, a bit."

The phone is silent for a second. He was supposed to say  _no_. Supposed to act like an adult and brush it off in that flippant, callous way for better conversational flow.

But he would not have said "yes" to many people. Sean knows that.

"So … what's his name?"

Aidan clears his throat. Again. A heavy fog seems to have settled in his chest. "Dean."

"He a musician, too?"

"Yeah," Aidan says. "Yeah, he's in the orchestra. … We're gonna have to work together every day," he tacks on with a breathless laugh.

"It happens. It'll be fine. You're both professionals."

Aidan doesn't say anything in agreement. He doesn't say anything at all, actually, just sets down the bottle of valve oil because he's not going to get anything done now, the way his hands are shaking. Sean is forced to fill the silence again.

"What did you fight about?"

…  _an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness._

The fanfare itself—the night Dean invited Aidan to meet his brother and Aidan's brain shut down—comes back to the forefront of Aidan's mind. "I dunno. He asked me to meet his family, and I kind of wasn't enthusiastic about the idea, you know? Things started moving really fast all of a sudden, and I couldn't keep up."

"Yeah," Sean says, and Aidan can't read what he's thinking at all. "When did you start seeing each other?"

Laughter, an unexpected, unbidden thing, bursts from Aidan's chest. He's never thought about it before. "I don't know …" he says softly. He screws the lid back onto the bottle of valve oil, buying time as he tries to make sense of their dating timeline. What exactly was the definitive starting point? It's like throwing darts at a board. Was it the first time they slept together, the first time they spent the night together, that morning they talked about colors, the day Dean officially signed a contract to stay in London with Aidan, or— _shit_. "October, maybe?" Aidan says, somehow, even though he feels breathless.

Expecting exasperation or contempt, he can only brace himself.  _October? That was_ months _ago, Aidan. That's a long time. Grow up. Get a grip. Do you want a relationship or not?_

"That's okay," Sean says, and Aidan frowns.

"—What?"

"That's a couple months, maybe. If you're not ready, you know, it's okay to take things slow."

Aidan processes this for a moment, then leans over to set his horn on the floor. "I could've tried harder, though," he allows. "Aren't you supposed to make sacrifices for the people you—you know, the people you like, or care about, or all that dramatic bullshit?"

"Did you like him?"

Aidan wills his voice not to crack. "Yeah."

"Then it's good that you were honest with him," Sean says, as if it's the simplest thing.

"Yeah, but … I hurt his feelings. I just shut the whole idea down, you know?" he says. Lowering himself backwards, Aidan lies down diagonally across his mattress. He gazes at the ceiling as he listens to his brother's answer.

"But I mean, like you said, meeting family is a big step," Sean says. "I didn't meet Ashley's parents until this summer, and we've been together more than a year. You shouldn't do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

"Right."

"It's okay to be scared."

Aidan takes a deep breath. "I know. It's just that—I was scared  _then_ , when he kind of hit me with the idea. But now … I dunno. I haven't seen him in almost a week. I dunno what's going to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm gonna see him again eventually. And I dunno what will happen when, you know, when I see him. But I'm kind of scared that  _nothing_  will happen. … You know?"

The line is quiet for a long time. Aidan sucks in cold air to relieve the burning in his throat.

Then Sean asks, gently, "Do you still like him?"

The answer almost sticks inside his chest. "Yeah," Aidan whispers. "Yeah, I do."

He wouldn't be able to fool his brother, anyway, so why keep trying to fool himself?

* * *

 

On Thursday night, Aidan and Russell perform the _Nutcracker_ , this time with a small chamber orchestra in a quaint old concert hall without any dancers. It's the first of three performances; they have Friday off, then play Saturday night and a Sunday matinee.

Half-way through the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Russell's music blows off his stand.

Seriously. Pages everywhere, littering the floor around their feet.

How a breeze suddenly overtook the concert hall is anyone's guess.

Aidan almost chokes. Literally mid-note, he has a panic attack. That must be why his stomach folds over itself forty times over. His own music flutters ominously, but stays in place.

Russell is still playing, though, and he's in tune at any rate. Aidan tries to focus on his own line, and tries not to focus on the way Russell's improvisation does or doesn't fit with what he is playing.

When the movement concludes, they exchange a frantic but silent dialogue—maybe an argument. Russell's eyebrows try to convince Aidan that he's completely innocent, and Aidan doesn't have any proper retaliation, considering Russell just killed Tchaikovsky literally from memory.

It's not until after the concert that Aidan gets a chance to confront him about it.

"Jesus fucking goddamn  _Christ_ , did you just make all that up?!"

"I mean, it's the  _Nutcracker_ , Aidan, I have most of it memorized by now," Russell shrugs.

"I was almost too scared to play my  _own_  music," Aidan says, "and I was looking right at it. How the  _fuck_  did you do that?"

Russell smirks. "Some of us are cool under pressure, babe."

"Some of us are masters of bullshit, you mean."

That's when the principal trumpet, Dominic, approaches them with wide eyes, and launches a story about this phenomenal fiasco he experienced at a previous gig. "… the conductor literally clothes-lined my music stand. He couldn't have been more violent if it was on purpose. So my stand has crashed to the stage, and my music is scattered across the first four rows of the audience…"

Aidan is cracking up by this point. He misses most of the fairy tale, but that's not the point, it's about the camaraderie, and about making fun of Russell Tovey as much as possible. When Dominic finishes his story, Aidan turns backstage because he's ready to put his horn away, pack it all in, go home, and take a long, lukewarm shower.

His case is right where he left it, in a secluded, shadowy corner backstage; and next to his case stands Dean O'Gorman.

Aidan blinks. At first he thinks he must be seeing things—but certainly he's not high enough for that. It's Dean. Standing next to Aidan's horn case. With a bouquet of flowers.

A gorgeous, baffling bouquet of flowers bursting with springtime pastels which, honestly, no one should be able to find in the middle of December.

"These are for you," Dean says, and the accent is right. It must be Dean. It must be real life.

Dean's apologies officially confirm the reality that Aidan is experiencing. Only Dean O'Gorman would find anything to be sorry about in this situation. Only Dean O'Gorman could stand in front of him now with a bundle of fresh flowers and act like he's been the bad guy.

Aidan tries to convince him otherwise, too.

"I'm the one who fucked up," Aidan insists. "I fucked up. I heard 'brother' and 'dinner' and 'holidays' and it all felt  _real_  all of a sudden."

"Are you saying it wasn't real before?"

"No." Aidan almost bursts from that stab-wound. " _God_ , no. I'm just … I got scared and let that get ahold of me. Like a fight or flight thing."

"I know what you mean."

Aidan coughs. "You do?" What has Dean ever had to be remotely afraid of? What on earth has ever cracked Dean's unflappable security and frankly _intimidating_ self-confidence?

"God, Aidan. I'm pretty scared right now. I'm  _really_  scared."

Aidan wants nothing more than to fix that. To take away Dean's fear. It's fucked up, really, for Dean to be afraid of anything right now; if he's at all unsure in Aidan's presence; because Aidan is  _so_  sure—Aidan holds himself up with nothing except how  _sure_  he is that Dean belongs here, right now, and  _doesn't deserve to be afraid_.

He thinks of Liv, who told him to be honest; he thinks of his brother, who told him it was okay to be scared. And he thinks of Don Juan. The oboe solo, not the infamous sleaze.

"I thought I was scared to meet your family," Aidan admits in a breathless jumble, "and spend holidays together, and  _be_  with you, but now …" he clenches a fist around the flower-stems, though all he can feel are Dean's fingers beside his own, "now I think I'm way more scared not to."

Dean rewards him with a smile. Dimples and all. Whatever he's thinking, it doesn't matter. Something went right. He made Dean smile.

"What are  _you_  scared of?" Aidan asks before he can consider the question—before he can stop himself, even though he feels like an idiot as soon as it leaves his mouth.

But Dean laughs, and it's beautiful. "I'm scared you're gonna throw these flowers back in my face."

Automatically, Aidan tightens his hold on the bouquet. Because quite frankly, throwing it anywhere is the last thing on his mind; he wants to hold onto it forever.

Aidan has kissed a lot of people, for better or worse.

Dean O'Gorman comprises a good handful of those kisses, himself. In the past few weeks, they've kissed more times than anyone could ever keep count. Dean's kisses light up the nerve endings in Aidan's spine, like the bright veins of a city coming to life under a satellite's night-view. They make him dizzy. They make him think of wrinkled bedsheets and well-tuned chords and coffee with enough room for cream and deep shades of crimson. And when Dean kisses him here—when he takes Aidan's face between his hands and pulls the air out of his lungs—backstage where anyone can see, where everyone is gone so _no one_ can see—that is quite possibly the best kiss of Aidan's entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might go back and edit this further, but i'm about to go on a tour and i didn't want to leave yall hanging.
> 
> so maybe there's an epilogue with porn and fluff coming. or something.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gratuitous fluff that totally totally got away from me. i meant for this to make sense, but now it's just fluffy fluffy fluff. fdjakfjdl;ajgfld;agjkdla;

"Should I kiss him?"

"Tonight, you mean?"

"No, Liv. Should I ever kiss him again for the rest of our lives," Aidan says drily. Then he slides the carton of eggs into a cupboard next to several mismatched wine glasses. "Yes, tonight. Should I kiss him tonight?"

"… Sure," Liv says, giving him a funny look.

Aidan glances at her, then at the egg carton, then narrows his eyes. "I don't  _know_ ," he sighs, removing the eggs so he can put them in the refrigerator where they belong. "It's just that the last time I dove in for a kiss, we—things didn't end so well."

"Do what you want, I guess," says Liv, "but I'm willing to bet you and Dean will kiss at least once tonight."

"But should _I_  kiss  _him_? What if I give off the wrong—like—what if he thinks I only asked him over to hook up?"

"Aidan, sweetheart … here, let me." Liv gently tugs the loaf of bread from Aidan's grasp so he might stop trying to stuff it onto the top shelf of their freezer. "There is no way Dean thinks that. He likes you, okay? He bought you flowers." She nods toward the vase perched on their dinky three-legged table under the round kitchen window. "He's going to come over tonight because he likes you, and because he wants to spend time with you. And if you want to kiss him,  _you should definitely kiss him_."

Aidan can't really argue with her. It doesn't stop him from worrying, though.

When Liv asks Aidan what he's cooking for Dean, she has to repeat the question four times before he understands what's going on. And then it still takes him a few minutes to come up with the answer.

"Hadn't really thought about it."

Which she doesn't believe at all, judging by her withering look.

"What?!" Aidan pulls himself up to sit on the counter. He wants to help with the groceries, but he'll probably end up sticking ice cream in the oven or something equally logical.

" _Hadn't really thought about it_ ," she says in a squeaky voice. "Yeah, right."

Aidan laughs. "Right, right, maybe I have. A  _bit_. I thought about cooking the asparagus, but not everyone likes asparagus. It's one of those foods … I don't know if Dean likes asparagus. Probably does, but I don't want to risk it, you know?"

There is a beat of silence while she stares at him expectantly. "So what  _are_  you cooking?"

"Oh! Nothing really, just a sauté. Whatever vegetables we have."

"Except the asparagus."

"Except the asparagus."

"Sounds good," Liv says as she finishes with the last of the canned foods. "You nervous?"

Aidan folds his arms. "We're just hanging out," he says without actually answering her.

"Mhmm." Crossing the room, she rests a hand on his knee and smiles. "I'm gonna fix my hair and then head out. You need to get cooking, anyway."

"Right." When he hops off the counter, Aidan experiences a split second of light-headedness. In the time it takes to regain his bearing, Liv has disappeared from the kitchen.

"I'm going to be out with some of the girls," she calls from the next room. "I haven't been  _drinking_  drinking since before the Nutcracker. I need to relax, anyway, you know? So the house is yours."

Aidan trails after her as she ducks into the bathroom. Watches in the mirror as she runs a brush through her hair. "Cool."

"I'll just stay overnight at Carrie's, I think. You're  _welcome_  for that, by the way."

"—Yeah," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thanks."

She promptly sets her hairbrush on the countertop and spins to face him. "You're cute," she says matter-of-factly.

Aidan pretends to blush. "Oh, stop."

"You're cute, and you're a good cook, and you're fun to be around." She reaches out to take both of his hands in her own. "And Dean  _likes you_."

This time, Aidan really does blush. "Thanks, Liv," is all he can come up with.

Before anything can get too melodramatic, Liv scoops up her keys and shrugs into a stylish blue trench coat, pats Aidan on the arm, and bids him good night.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" she says, one hand on the doorknob.

"'Course not," he says, then grins. "So how do you feel about shower sex?"

"Aidan  _Turner_ , we have to share that shower!"

"Right, right. Share the shower. Got it," he says with a wink. "Alright, get out of here, you're going to be late."

She flips him off before closing the door behind her.

To avoid the flock of butterflies threatening to take flight in his stomach, Aidan immediately goes to the living room, opens his laptop, selects a playlist that has no classical music, and sets it on shuffle.

He spends the next hour chopping vegetables, tossing them in oil and spices, firing up the stove, and singing along to Bob Dylan (or rather, half-mumbling, half-humming along, because he only knows about a third of the lyrics). Halfway through stirring three colors of bell peppers together, Aidan's phone vibrates on the opposite counter, and Dean's name flashes on the screen.

Aidan's stomach flips, and he takes a deep breath to settle it down. He missed getting texts from Dean. A lot.

He wipes one hand on the nearest towel and swipes the message open.

_Almost forgot all my stuff on the bus and had to go back and get it. I think the driver was mad at me oops_

Aidan grins.  _He'll live_.

It's not until several minutes later that it strikes Aidan—what  _stuff_  is Dean bringing along? Maybe his oboe? Aidan glances at his horn case where it's tucked next to the couch. He only practiced for an hour this morning, which he's feeling pretty guilty about. Maybe Dean plans on practicing at some point. He's not the type to let himself get away with one hour a day, is he?

Aidan doesn't have long to think about it before he gets another text.

_I think I'm at your building_

The process of placing a lid over his steaming vegetables, pocketing his phone and keys, dashing downstairs to retrieve Dean, and leading him back to the third floor—past a barking Pomeranian and a young woman crowding the stairs with two duffel bags—is a blur in Aidan's memory. He spends the entire time wanting to stare at Dean and simultaneously avoiding staring at Dean in order not to come across as creepy and desperate.

"So, this is the place," he says with a sheepish smile as he opens the door. He lets Dean go in first. Not for any nefarious reasons, of course.

So Dean looks incredible, as expected. Whatever he does with his hair is phenomenal, because it always looks fluffy and touchable, but not a bit out of place. And he's wearing jeans, which is a blessing, and he peels off his coat to reveal a big cozy cardigan with pockets. It's strange, because Dean's day-to-day ensemble typically consists of slacks, dress shoes, and a button-down, but somehow this weekend-casual Dean is no less chic—just more approachable.

Plus it makes Aidan feel less silly for choosing green plaid.

"Wow, this is incredible!" Dean says of the flat while Aidan closes the door behind them.

"Really?"

"I love it. Is your roommate here?"

"Not tonight. We're—she let us have the place to ourselves."

"Well, I can't complain about that." Dean turns around and Aidan notices he's got something tucked under one arm. It's definitely not an oboe.

"What's that?"

"Oh, I almost forgot, yeah! Here," says Dean, and then proudly displays a bottle of deep red wine.

Aidan bursts with laughter, then claps a hand over his mouth. He bites his lip. "You didn't have to."

Dean shrugs. He takes a step closer and—actually, he's quite close. Aidan's not sure when that happened.

Aidan clears his throat. "You don't like red wine."

"It's grown on me," Dean says with a smile. His eyelids flicker.

The air shudders in Aidan's lungs. "Here, let me take that off your hands." He grabs the bottle, leads the way into the kitchen, procures a cork-opener from a drawer, and hands it to Dean. "You do the honors while I get some glasses?"

Aidan takes the opportunity to watch Dean twist the bottle open with practiced ease. He also takes the opportunity to catch his breath. Probably all that running up and down stairs, yeah?

"Smells amazing."

Aidan blinks. Shit, did he get caught staring?

Dean's smiling though, and Aidan forces his eyes to kind of skate over his dimples to the food sizzling on the stove.

"Thanks! Yeah, thanks, it's—I hope you like nutmeg." Aidan lifts the lid to free some of the steam, and some of the aroma, which  _is_  pretty great, he has to admit.

Dean leans closer, presumably for a better look at the dish, but his hand lands on the small of Aidan's back—just to the left—his thumb curls in a little—and Aidan doesn't want to assume, but he sure hopes that wasn't a coincidence.

"I didn't know you were such a good cook!" Dean says, a little accusatory, and gives Aidan a gentle shake.

A flush creeps under Aidan's eyes. Definitely due to the haze of spices lingering over the stove. "No one's going to give me a Michelin star, or anything. But I can take care of myself."

"I'll say," Dean agrees, and leans in again to inspect their dinner. "What's in there?"

"Nothing fancy. Peppers, onions, spinach, mushrooms."

Dean hesitates for a moment. "No meat?" he asks carefully, and Aidan can see his eyes do a surreptitious scan of the stove and countertops.

"Oh, shit, I didn't even—we never have any meat in the house. I mean, I don't eat it, so I totally forgot, sorry. We could get some though—seriously, it would only take a second, I just didn't—"

"You're a vegetarian?" Dean cuts in.

Aidan stutters to a stop. He looks at Dean for a moment, actually looks at him and his furrowed brow and the funny curve of his lips. "Yeah, sort of."

"How did I not know this?"

"I don't … I mean, I'm not militant about it or anything," Aidan shrugs. Dean's hand is still on his hip. Still. Still. "W-when I was in college I couldn't afford meat, so I just kind of stopped eating it altogether. I'm not against it or anything—I wouldn't mind—but I guess at this point, it's been so long … I'd probably be sick or something." He chuckles awkwardly.

"It's fine," Dean says, giving Aidan's hip a squeeze. "I just can't believe I didn't notice."

Aidan shrugs. "Like I said, I'm not that …  _aggressive_  about it." He wants to stop blushing, because Dean is clearly staring at his cheeks, but that only makes him blush harder.

"Sorry. Anyway." Dean clears his throat and takes a step back, breaking contact with Aidan's back, and Aidan feels the absurd urge to pull Dean's hand back.

"Are we okay?" he blurts out. Instantly he wants to erase it—just have a second try, you know, because that was breathless and frantic and completely humiliating. But it's out there now, so he might as well keep going. "Sorry—fuck—I mean, is this awkward?" By the time he finishes, his voice is at a whisper.

Dean gapes at him for a minute, then takes a deep breath. "It's a little awkward," he admits. Then he smiles and reaches out for Aidan's hand. "But it's alright. It's just dinner. We've had dinner before."

"Yeah," Aidan says, looking down at their hands. "I just don't want to pretend nothing happened. You know, because I'm sorry about everything, and how I said some stupid shit, and … I'm  _really_  sorry."

"I'm sorry, too."

"I want to meet your brother," Aidan adds. "Like, actually meet him, not just—whatever last night was."

"Hey," Dean says. He pulls Aidan in by the waist. "You don't have to. I didn't mean to spring all that on you."

"I want to," he insists. "Last time I spoke before thinking and totally fucked up. But now I've thought about it, and I  _want_  to. I want to meet your brother. I want you to be here in my flat, I want to—to cook you dinner, and share a bottle of wine, and text you every day."

Dean kisses him. Sort of. It's just a peck on the jaw—probably because he can't reach any higher—but it makes Aidan's heart beat so hard he can taste it. And Dean says "thank you," softly, with one hand resting on Aidan's stomach.

Aidan smiles. "I … kind of want to eat, too. Just want to make sure this isn't shit. Unless—unless you wanted to get some chicken, or something?"

"No, shut up, it looks amazing," Dean says, smacking Aidan's arm and stepping away again.

Aidan sighs at the loss, but it's fine, it's fine. He plates dinner and pours the wine and they retreat to the living room to eat on the couch because Aidan doesn't care how informal it may seem, it's a great deal more comfortable than squeezing into the wooden chairs around the kitchen table.

Dean asks how Russell is doing, and likewise, Aidan asks after Alice. In the week they've gone without seeing each other, they've also not seen many of their other colleagues. Dean tells a couple of silly stories about his brother, who loves London but doesn't much fit in, and Aidan recounts the fiasco with Russell's music from the night before.

After almost an hour, Aidan's computer reaches the end of that old Bob Dylan playlist, but neither of them notices the silence.

When they've finished eating, Dean glances around the room and shifts a bit on the couch. Right, because they've got no coffee table—bar the one living life as a television stand—or anything for him to do with his dishes.

Aidan offers to take Dean's plate and, before he can protest, sweeps off the couch and carries the used dishes to the kitchen. When he returns to the main room, he finds Dean up on his feet, wine glass in hand, gazing out one of the tall, paned windows. The view takes Aidan's breath away. Dean, that is—not the dirty streets outside—and the vapor of faded sunlight and street lamps clinging to the highlights in his hair. The subtle wrinkles inked around his mouth. His slender shadow stretching to the opposite wall.

Aidan approaches softly, and murmurs a "hey" when he gets close, so as not to startle Dean. Then he slides an arm around Dean's waist and kisses his shoulder.

Dean hums in acknowledgement.

"You want me to make coffee, or…?"

"Nah, don't worry about it," Dean says, turning in his arms. "Wine is good for now."

Their eyes meet and catch there. Aidan bites his lip because he knows he's kind of grinning like an idiot, but he can't help it. Dean, on the other hand, blinks rapidly. His eyebrows furrow, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips. He looks confused, but not unhappy—as if just seeing new sheet music for the first time. A little wary, Aidan runs a hand through his hair.

"Can I kiss you?"

Aidan tries not to laugh. "Yeah."

He does. Kiss him, that is. It's brief, but leaves all of Aidan's bones resonating.

As they part, Aidan smiles. "What was that for?"

"What?"

"I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before."

"… Asked to kiss you?"

Aidan shrugs.

Dean looks at him for a long time. So long, in fact, that Aidan begins to feel self-conscious. His stomach tightens, because it had seemed like a weird question at the time, but now he thinks he probably shouldn't have said anything.

Aidan didn't realize how close Dean was. How he'd raised a hand to cup Aidan's face, to trace his cheekbone with one thumb. He didn't realize how perfect Dean's eyelashes are up close, which is remarkable, because they're blond and practically invisible from far away. And Aidan gets to see them up close.

"Can I kiss you again?" Dean whispers.

"Yes."

Aidan loves the way Dean kisses. As he does everything in life, so does he kiss with purpose; with focus and intent, as if following sheet music he's practiced for months, even years. That's it—that's what makes Dean so good; it's the years of study, the decades of practice, which all lead up to one spontaneous, organic moment that he is generous enough to share. He  _shares_  that moment so well. He takes a deep breath and angles his jaw just right and waits just long enough before parting his lips. He doesn't demand anything, just invites, invites you along.

Dean's fingers thread through the little curls behind Aidan's ear, and then—Aidan had no idea he'd even set down his drink—Dean is holding Aidan's face between his hands, fingertips leaving ripples at the nape of his neck.

Aidan tries not to smile, because that, of course, makes kissing impractical, and he  _really_  wants to keep kissing Dean.

So he does. Dean passes off the phrase and Aidan carries it on, their breath wedded in a gentle melody strung across sheet music stained by early evening. The placid dissonances of teeth and joints and half smiles smooth out into glassy harmony. Despite the faded shaft of light that silvers through the east windows, Aidan could swear the room has grown warm.

The open-faced brick wall is cold against his back, but Dean's fingertips sear his ribs and his neck and his collarbone and his bottom lip and every path they trace in between. When Aidan exhales, the air is gone; escaped in a cloud of steam, into the fog of dust motes which clings to the last bits of daylight; he can't seem to breathe in again and isn't sorry for it; for drowning here in airtight harmony, where it feels like the bright iridescence of a Fitzgerald novel, or the space between notes when Brahms holds his cadence captive just a minute longer than you expect.

While he still can, Aidan breaks the kiss and leans back. Shaking, he tries to steady his hands against Dean's chest. "So what are we supposed to do now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know." Aidan pauses to fiddle with one of the buttonholes on Dean's cardigan. "Are we supposed to make it all official? Finish the wine, you kiss me good-night, take me out for dinner sometime, we wait to have sex until the third date?"

"So traditional," Dean teases, but he doesn't give a straight answer. Frankly if he says  _yes, let's wait!_ , it's going to be very hard to just ignore the way he bites his bottom lip and hooks his thumbs into the back of Aidan's waistband.

"I dunno, I just thought—are we supposed to take things slow?"

Dean considers this for a moment. "Is that what you want?"

Aidan hadn't thought about it, honestly. So he does now, and takes a long look at Dean's lips, and the curve of his neck, and the old stack of excerpt books next to the television, and the half-empty bottle of wine resting on the end table over his shoulder.

They went a week without seeing each other. Next to Brahms and Merlot,  _taking things slow_  seems absurd. Like playing a symphony in the wrong key when you have the sheet music right in front of you.

"Not really," Aidan admits with a shy laugh.

Dean breaks into a smile. "Thank god."

Aidan slips his own glass onto the windowsill and bends forward to kiss Dean again. It's good. Again. Always.

Until the sun officially goes down and all that's left are the streetlights. The permeate the room with a dim orange glow, and it's everywhere, in between his fingers; in the little crevices of the brick wall; in Dean's eyes and his lips. Aidan can practically hear it.

He leans back again, and Dean makes a soft, disgruntled noise.

"You know, I never gave you a full tour."

"Is your bedroom on the tour?"

It is. It's the destination, really, and they both knew it all along. They're still making out when they get there, the only difference is most of Aidan's buttons are undone and Dean has lost his shoes and his cardigan.

"You know," Dean says breathlessly. "You know what you said about going slow?"

Aidan's heart skips. "Yeah?"

"We could still—er, go slow."

This bewilders Aidan, at first, but then Dean reaches between them and slides a hand in Aidan's pants— _slowly_ —and Aidan understands. He understands a lot of things. He understands why Dean wants to go slow and why there are curtains in his bedroom but not in the living room and why Brahms took twenty years to finish his first symphony. He understands. Slowly, they peel off layers. Slowly, Dean spins Aidan around and bends him over the mattress. And Aidan wouldn't use the word "slow" to describe what Dean does with his tongue, but he understands.

Aidan can't form sentences, or words even, but he whines and twists his fingers into the bedclothes. They were neat, at one point, but now they're already a bit of a mess just from Aidan twitching and rutting into the mattress. When he's reduced to a moaning puddle, barely breathing against the pillows, Dean rolls him over onto his back. Aidan doesn't argue.

Dean is naked and glorious and running hands up and down Aidan' torso and leaving gooseflesh behind. He fixes his lips to the curve of Aidan's neck and Aidan whimpers.

"What do you want?" Dean whispers.

A spasm starts at the bottom of Aidan's spine. He doesn't really register the question, but his thighs tighten around Dean's hips.

"What do you want, Aidan?"

"I don't—ah— _you_ ," he chokes out. "You, I just want you."

Dean hums as he slides a finger inside Aidan. "You have any condoms?"

At first, that question calls for far more brainpower than Aidan can muster. All the circuits along his spine blow before he can process just what's happening—where Dean's voice is even coming from.

"Aidan?"

He gasps. Then he laughs. "Yeah—fuck, yeah, they're on the other side of the room."

Dean snorts and rolls off him so he can retrieve a half-empty box of condoms from his dresser drawer and a bottle of lube, for good measure. Which Dean puts to good use. Five minutes later, he's got three fingers inside of Aidan, whose head somehow ended up on the windowsill after Dean chased him across the bedsheets.

When Dean first pulls away, Aidan protests, but then he replaces his fingers with his cock and Aidan reaches down to help him aim and God, it's agonizingly slow, it's water trickling across a flat surface to nowhere, to nowhere, to the ends of the earth in pursuit of the setting sun, and Aidan's stomach clenches while he tries to suck in enough air and he can't. He can't.

"Is that okay?" Dean's lips brush his earlobe.

Aidan has no idea when Dean leaned in that close but instantly, he wraps all his limbs around him to keep him there.

"Aidan? You okay?"

"Yes,  _please_ —" he wheezes, that frantic inaudible sound you make when you try to speak on an inhale.

When Dean starts moving, it is slow, like he promised. He drops soft kisses under Aidan's eyes and at the corners of his mouth, and rocks into him gently, and slips a hand under the back of Aidan's head so it doesn't knock against the hard wood of the windowsill. Aidan doesn't fully register the kindness of this gesture until Dean speeds up. The bed creaks and Aidan can see stars, literally, with his neck craned back so Dean can suck a dark bruise into the hollow just over Aidan's collarbone.

Aidan comes first. He arches his back and digs his heels into the back of Dean's knees and says "Jesus fucking son of a Christ I can't I can't—" and other desperate unintelligible bullshit.

Dean buries his face into Aidan's shoulder and grunts and yeah, when he comes, it's wild, and Aidan legitimately fears for the structure of his bed frame. He collapses there on top of Aidan and breathes. Breathes. They breathe together. It's actually kind of hard for Aidan to breathe. Not that Dean is heavy—very much the opposite—but he didn't start with much air, to begin with, and then it all escaped with his orgasm, and now Dean is stretched out on top of him, warm and purring and weighed down by deep relief.

After a few minutes, it really is too much. Aidan can feel Dean throbbing inside him, and maybe crushing his ribs a little. He noses against Dean's temple and says, gingerly, "I'm—I'm not—I can't really breath."

Dean springs up, holding himself over Aidan and offering frenzied apologies.

"It's fine, it's fine, it's fine."

Dean shifts a little and starts to pull out, and Aidan flat-out panics.

"Don't! Don't—don't go," he gasps. Winds his fingers into Dean's hair and pulls him in for a deep kiss.

"Mm. You want me to keep going?" Dean says. Growls, more like. "Because I could—"

He grinds his hips a little and static surges up Aidan's spine. Everything is oversensitive and raw and completely fucked-out and he really can't, he wants to but he  _can't_  "—No, wait, fuck, oh god—" then he bursts with laughter. "Sorry, sorry I'm sorry, I didn't mean it—"

Dean is laughing, too. And kissing him, and laughing, and sliding a hand to the inside of Aidan's thigh; laughing, and holding his legs open and pulling out so slow Aidan can hardly feel it.

He must find the bathroom on his own, because he doesn't ask Aidan for directions, and five minutes later he's back, wrapping Aidan up in his arms and in the blankets and kissing him deeply.

It's not even late. They still doze off for a few hours before having sex again, sometime in the wistful hours of cadential progression, sometime before the sun comes up but after the street lamps go out. Aidan didn't actually know they  _went_  out. He says so while he yanks the covers over their shoulders and wraps his legs around Dean's waist.

In the morning, once the sun is up, Dean wraps an arm around Aidan's ribs and slides his hand up Aidan's chest, and Aidan grinds back against his erection and they don't say anything but they melt together again in the lazy sunlight sunken into the sheets. Dean fucks him from behind to avoid tangled limbs and morning breath.

"Hey Aidan?"

"Yeah?"

"I like your bed."

Aidan smiles into the pillow. "It's grown on me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND ALL YOUR REVIEWS ARE SO KIND. THEY MAKE MY DAY, HONEST TO GOD.


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